“For us, it’s The Getup grows up a little bit,” says Kaylan Mitchell, co-owner of the funky vintage clothing store that’s moving to S. Fourth Ave. after nineteen years on S. State St.
Mitchell says she and co-owner Lindsey Leyland chose not to renew their lease. “We were both just really feeling that we had outgrown it. And we weren’t feeling particularly challenged by the space or inspired,” she says. With just 782 square feet, no air-conditioning, and no back alley to keep trash bins off the curb, it was time for Getup to go.
They found bigger digs three blocks west in the recently restored former Montgomery Ward department store, an ironic twist for a business focused on restoring and reselling fashions that could have originally sold there seventy years ago. The building, which sold for $21 million in 2022, now includes a hotel upstairs, a basement comedy venue, and soon, two ground-floor cafés: House of Chimney Cakes and CupsnChai.
The pair see that area of downtown as a better fit for experiential shopping. Their new shop is more than twice as large, but by giving up the warehouse they’d rented on W. Ellsworth Rd., their tenancy expenses will remain about the same.
The ’70s bohemian vibe they curated on S. State is giving way to a cleaner, airier look—“Bauhaus with a little bit of ’80s flair,” Mitchell says—with a counter of repurposed glass block, pink fitting rooms, and space for table displays.
They’ve also shortened the name: it was originally the Getup Vintage, but they dropped the last part, because the expanded store will also carry new works from local makers, from ceramics to prints.
Mitchell and Leyland met as employees of founders Kelly and Paul McLeod, who sold them the business in 2015. Leyland, their first hire, uses her seamstress skills to repair the merchandise, bought mostly from private collections they find through word of mouth. At the new shop, she’ll provide on-the-spot fixes to items customers bring in and host classes on the appreciation and care of this anti-fast fashion, since “each decade has its own requirements for upkeep.”
Mitchell, former house manager at the Michigan Theater, jokes that “I brought them so many popcorns that they hired me,” but she’s serious about the store’s sustainability mission: “You could clothe the next six generations of people with the amount of clothes that already exist on the planet.”
While they’re bittersweet about departing from S. State, where discounts approached half-off in the last week of June, there was never any doubt about keeping their independent presence downtown.
“Ann Arbor needs more retail and needs people who decide to dig in and stay for a long time,” Leyland says. “I don’t want to put large companies on blast, but that’s what will gobble this up.”
The Getup, 210 S. Fourth Ave. (734) 327–4300. Through June 30 at 215 S. State: Mon.–Sat. noon–8 p.m., Sun. noon– 6 p.m.; new hours TBD.
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